IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/maneco/v1y2014i1p17n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emergence of Sago Palms as Private Property: An Extension of Demsetz’s Thesis of the Origins of Private Property

Author

Listed:
  • Landa Janet T.

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

Abstract

Harold Demsetz (1967. “Towards a Theory of Property Rights,” The American Economic Review 57(2): 350), in a seminal paper, developed an economic thesis of the emergence of private property: “[P]roperty rights develop to internalize externalities when the gains of internalization become larger than the cost of internalization…. [G]iven a community’s tastes … the emergence of new private or state-owned property rights will be in response to changes in technology and relative prices.” Demsetz used his theory to explain anthropologist Leacock’s findings about the emergence of private hunting grounds for fur-bearing animals among the Canadian Montagne Indian tribes living in Quebec. In a more recent paper, Demsetz (2002. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights II: The Competition between Private and Collective Ownership,” The Journal of Legal Studies 31: S653–72) broadened his theory to include the emergence of private property from state enforcement of contractual rights. In this paper, I revisit Demsetz’s thesis by showing that there is another pathway to the emergence of private property. The facts I use to develop my law and bioeconomics-public choice theory of the emergence of sago palms as private property are based on anthropologist H. S. Morris’s (1976. “A Problem in Land Tenure,” in G. N. Appell (ed.) The Societies of Borneo: Explorations in the Theory of Cognatic Social Structure, pp. 110–20. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association) case study of Melanau hunter-gatherer-fishing tribal people living in Sarawak where individuals held sago palms as private property.

Suggested Citation

  • Landa Janet T., 2014. "Emergence of Sago Palms as Private Property: An Extension of Demsetz’s Thesis of the Origins of Private Property," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 51-67, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:maneco:v:1:y:2014:i:1:p:17:n:3
    DOI: 10.1515/me-2014-0006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/me-2014-0006
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/me-2014-0006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederic Pryor, 2003. "What Does it Mean to be Human? A Comparison of Primate Economies," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 97-145, May.
    2. Christopher Boehm, 2004. "What Makes Humans Economically Distinctive? A Three-Species Evolutionary Comparison and Historical Analysis," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 109-135, May.
    3. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 9, pages 178-203, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Cooter, Robert & Landa, Janet T., 1984. "Personal versus impersonal trade: The size of trading groups and contract law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 15-22, June.
    5. Eggertsson,Thrainn, 1990. "Economic Behavior and Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521348911, October.
    6. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 124-124.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kovac Mitja & Elkanawati Amira & Gjikolli Vita & Vandenberghe Ann-Sophie, 2020. "The Covid-19 pandemic: collective action and European public policy under stress," Central European Journal of Public Policy, Sciendo, vol. 14(2), pages 47-59, December.
    2. Bellanger, Manuel & Fonner, Robert & Holland, Daniel S. & Libecap, Gary D. & Lipton, Douglas W. & Scemama, Pierre & Speir, Cameron & Thébaud, Olivier, 2021. "Cross-sectoral externalities related to natural resources and ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    3. Robert O. Keohane & Elinor Ostrom, 1994. "1. Introduction," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(4), pages 403-428, October.
    4. Parisi, Francesco & Schulz, Norbert & Depoorter, Ben, 2005. "Duality in Property: Commons and Anticommons," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 578-591, December.
    5. Anderson, C. Leigh & Swimmer, Eugene, 1997. "Some empirical evidence on property rights of first peoples," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, May.
    6. Hannes H. Gissurarson, 2017. "Liberalism in Iceland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 14(2), pages 241–273-2, May.
    7. Oran R. Young, 1994. "2. The Problem of Scale in Human/Environment Relationships," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(4), pages 429-447, October.
    8. Jongwook Kim & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2002. "Resource-based and property rights perspectives on value creation: the case of oil field unitization," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 225-245.
    9. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Salant, Stephen W., 2011. "A free lunch in the commons," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 245-253, May.
    10. Holland, Daniel S. & Herrera, Guillermo E., 2012. "The impact of age structure, uncertainty, and asymmetric spatial dynamics on regulatory performance in a fishery metapopulation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 207-218.
    11. McCloskey Deirdre Nansen, 2018. "The Two Movements in Economic Thought, 1700–2000: Empty Economic Boxes Revisited," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Carlson, Ernest W., 1971. "The Biological and Economic Objectives of Fishery Management," File Manuscripts, United States National Marine Fisheries Service, Economic Research Division, number 233587, January.
    13. Coxhead, Ian A. & Jayasuriya, Sisira, 2003. "Trade, Liberalization, Resource Degradation and Industrial Pollution in Developing Countries: An Integrated Analysis," Staff Papers 12691, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    14. Busch, Jonah, 2008. "Gains from configuration: The transboundary protected area as a conservation tool," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 394-404, October.
    15. Rauscher, Michael, 1996. "Sustainable Development and Complex Ecosystems. An Economist's View," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 02, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    16. Squires, Dale & Vestergaard, Niels, 2013. "Technical change in fisheries," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 286-292.
    17. Guillaume Bataille & Benteng Zou, 2024. "International Fisheries Agreements: Endogenous Exits, Shapley Values, and Moratorium Fishing Policy," DEM Discussion Paper Series 24-06, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    18. De Alessi, Michael & Sullivan, Joseph M. & Hilborn, Ray, 2014. "The legal, regulatory, and institutional evolution of fishing cooperatives in Alaska and the West Coast of the United States," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 217-225.
    19. B. Rudders, David & Ward, John M., 2015. "Own-price elasticity of open access supply as a long-run measure of fish stock abundance," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 215-226.
    20. Barkley Rosser, J. Jr., 2001. "Complex ecologic-economic dynamics and environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 23-37, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    communal property; customary law (the adat); externalities; decision-making costs; cognatic kinship system; corporate groups; variance reduction; food storage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:maneco:v:1:y:2014:i:1:p:17:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.